In an economy guzzling billions to fuel discounts, be a 100Krafts kind of startup

In a startup world full of news about funding rounds, four-year old 100Krafts stands out. This startup in the field of residential interior design and architecture, customized furniture and modular kitchens recently completed 750 projects in Bangalore and Pune with zero external funding. They have also won numerous awards for Best Interior Designer and Innovation from HOME Magazine and CMO Asia among others.

Ravi Roshan, one of the founders had this to say, "It was a conscious decision not to go after funding. Our idea and concept is too unique and convincing investors to invest in a service-based model would have been more difficult than growing it."

We broke even in the first year itself. It was tough in the beginning but now we have created a unique niche for ourselves and are giving some very interesting offerings to our customers."

100Krafts has created an interesting and unique PaaS (Platform as a Service) model. Clients are connected to one of the empanelled interior designers based on every individual taste and requirement. This ensures that designs are the outcome of customer tastes and not copy pasted styles. The design process has been created using scientific methodology which is unique in India.

Nishant Gupta, the second founder added, "It is common in the industry for designers to simply copy from a standard template and make modifications according to a floor plan. A design should be the outcome of diligence and deliberation. A month spent making designs is actually nothing strange in our projects."

Execution also follows the same model. 100Krafts has an option of factory finish, off-site as well as on-site execution. The options available for designers become endless due to this flexibility. For example, if a company works on just factory-made items, the possibilities in design become highly limited and the customer does not even realize what he could have got for the same price. In addition, 100Krafts offers specialized décor and furniture experts - another unique feature. In addition, contractors and vendors are chosen based on the design and consideration is given to parameters like availability of labor while selecting the contractors.

100Krafts has its own team who handle complete monitoring and quality control. They also act as a single point of contact for the customer during the entire project. The startup has adopted the Agile methodology for project management to further sharpen delivery. And that means better management of cost and time.